++ THE WORK :: REVIEWS ++
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"...Ben Miles, as Tom, the gentle, awkward, utterly
useless vet who might just, one day, pluck up the courage to ask Annie out.
Cleverly cast as by far the best-looking of the three men, Miles
nevertheless radiates negative sexuality and stammering nonpassion. His
decency is exceeded only by his dullness. Even the neat way he rolls up his
shirtsleeves is eloquent."
- Christopher Hart, The Times
The Times | The Telegraph | The Guardian | What's on Stage | The Stage | Evening Standard | Official London Theatre Website
The Independent | Variety | Financial Times
The Guardian | What's on Stage | The Stage | The Times |The Telegraph | Bloomberg | This is London | London Theatre Guide
"Moreover, he gets strong performances from everybody, especially Oliver Cotton as ruthless Northumberland and Ben Miles as a Bolingbroke so cool and menacing that he might be a company smoothie engineering the boardroom putsch that will make him the chairman of England plc. He visibly toughens as Spacey’s Richard discovers his vulnerability."
- Benedict Nightingale, The Times
"...there is a good Bolingbroke from Ben Miles. The tricky relationship between him and Oliver Cotton's haught-insulting Northumberland is also firmly established..."
- Michael Billington, The Guardian
"Nunn's production contains some outstanding support from Ben Miles as Bolingbroke, a smiling, devious Spacey alternative "
- Michael Coveney, The Independent
"The stand-out performance for me is Ben Miles’ Bolingbroke, the consummate player. Looking like a New Labour apparatchik (he even slightly resembles Peter Hain), his is a statesman prepared to use any and every form of spin. "
- Maxwell Cooter, WhatsonStage
"Ben Miles, making his striking Old Vic debut as Bolingbroke, is equally at home in a well-cut suit or military commander’s fatigues, despatching traitors, while allowing no crack to show in his smart politicising reverence for anointed kingship. "
- John Thaxter, The Stage
BBC News also has a page on the reviews and mentions that "Spacey's Armani-clad Richard received a great response from the first night audience," said the BBC's Neil Smith. "So did his British co-star Ben Miles, who played the usurper Bolingbroke. "
"That moment arrives near the end, tellingly, when the actress is at her quietest, in a wordless departure from the family home that finds Ranevskaya's aching heart as shrouded as her head. I doubt there's another theater performer anywhere who can be actressy and yet amazing within seconds, as Vanessa is advancing upon that eternal student, Trofimov (an appealing Ben Miles), her snappish anger giving way to anguished regret."
- Matt Wolf, Variety.
"Along the way there are some funny moments. Ravenscroft's best joke concerns a dogged lecher called Ramble who has designs on all three of the citizens' wives but finds that, once he has excited their curiosity, it is a sottish friend who finally satisfies their needs. As played by Ben Miles, slightly in the manner of Griff Rhys Jones, he emerges as an amiable chump who finds that the reward of lust is endless humiliation."
- Michael Billington, The Guardian
"...His new version of the text is not such as to persuade anyone that this is an important neglected play, but it is clear and straightforward: a sturdy vehicle for a luscious and imperious Caroline Quentin, a goofy, versatile Ben Miles, and for Kelly Reilly's appealing little country bumpkin...."
- Susannah Clapp, The Observer
"...Ben Miles turns in a magnificently skilful and winning performance as Ned Ramble, the sexier of a pair of gallants who, chronically accident-prone in his frantic, ingenious plots to bed the female population, is repeatedly foiled at the critical moment. Faced with a fetching, unsophisticated newlywed from the country who has been left by her paranoid husband in the chastity belt of a complete suit of armour, Miles has to become a flustered human tin-opener - though, true to form, he's eventually cheated of the can's contents..."
- Paul Taylor, The Independent
